midwife's muse

Through gritted teeth

Moan number 1

Hubby still has his bad back, and he is driving me MAD. If I'm not feeling too good I retreat to a spare bed, venturing out for the necessities. He lumbers around, moaning and groaning, demanding attention like some slightly under the weather toddler. I've tried upping his Valium, but unfortunately all that does is make him more clumsy and noisier. I'm sitting here now and there he is, in the background, talking constantly, and demanding instant responses. I know I should be more sympathetic, but I have tried that and all it does is encourage his calls for attention. I nipped out to the shops earlier and the minute I came back in he was calling to me, from infront of the TV, wanting a 'cuppa'.

Moan number 2

I have a mobile phone for work. On it is a clearly recorded message that informs the caller that if they hear it please don't leave any messages that are of an urgent nature as I may be on leave. From previous experience. I have learnt that some of my ladies ignore this and leave, in some cases, messages that require urgent attention, e.g  I'm bleeding, I haven't felt baby move for two days. For this reason I have taken to switching my phone on every evening and listening to the messages and dealing with anything that is left on there. I've just switched it on and found that one of my more demanding ladies had left a message, this morning, 5 minutes before her clinic appointment, to say that ' Oh sorry, done it again, forgot about my appointment. You know how last time you came and saw me at home on Saturday, well can you do that again as I really find the clinic times inconvienient. 10 or 4 would be good cos we're going out for lunch. Bye, see you.' Well, I wasn't doing clinic today, my colleague was, and I'm not working Saturday because I'm still on holiday, and didn't she listen to the message? Supposing all my women, 180 of them, decided that clinics were inconvenient. Whilst I'm moaning about work.... The Portland Hospital, yes maternity unit to the stars. We have one of them at the moment. Never saw her whilst she was pregnant, had her baby in this exclusive establishment, but has deigned to have her aftercare with us. Okay, would have been good to meet her once or twice antenatally, but she was paying so it's her choice. She is now home, but with no paperwork. Nowhere for us to chart her's and baby's progress. The Portland were contacted about this lack of information and communication, don't they require some record of progress?  Apparently not, I would have thought they would have tightened up their record keeping after their recent high profile disasters, obviously once they have the money they close the file. How foolish.

6.4.05 17:11